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Beacon Chain: Core Of Ethereum 2.0
By Sandeep Kasalkar
Beacon Chain – is the name of the original proof-of-stake blockchain that was launched in 2020. It was created to ensure the proof-of-stake consensus logic was sound and sustainable before enabling it on Ethereum Mainnet.
It is a blockchain that manages staking and the registry of validators in a Proof-of-Stake cryptocurrency, such as Ethereum 2.0.
At the centre of Ethereum 2.0 is the Beacon Chain, which organises the shard chains and holds and controls the registry of validators. At 12 o’clock UTC on December 1, 2020, The Beacon Chain became live.
The Beacon Chain is a brand-new blockchain that uses proof-of-stake. It can be described poetically as the spine that supports the entire new Ethereum 2.0 system, the heartbeat that keeps the system alive, and the conductor who coordinates all the players. Another useful metaphor is to imagine the Beacon Chain as a large lighthouse rising above a sea of transaction data. It is constantly scanning, validating, collecting votes, and distributing rewards to validators who correctly attest to blocks, deducting rewards for those who are not online, and reducing ETH rewards from malicious actors.
The Beacon Chain’s primary function is to manage the proof-of-stake protocol and all shard chains. There are several aspects to this: managing validators and their stakes; nominating the chosen block proposer for each shard at each step; organising validators into committees to vote on the proposed blocks; applying the consensus rules; rewarding and penalising validators; and serving as an anchor point for shards to register their states to facilitate cross-shard transactions.
The important thing to remember is that the Beacon chain cannot run smart contracts; that will be handled by the shard chains.
The Beacon Chain is the new network’s coordination mechanism, responsible for creating new blocks, ensuring that those new blocks are valid, and rewarding validators with ETH for keeping the network secure. Proof-of-stake has long been on Ethereum’s agenda, and it addresses some of the shortcomings of proof-of-work blockchains, such as accessibility, centralization, and scalability. Instead of miners expending energy validating blocks, randomly selected validators (each with their own 32 ETH stake) propose new blocks that are voted on by other validators.
The next stage of Ethereum 2.0 is the establishment of shard chains, which will upgrade Ethereum’s data capacity, making the network faster and more scalable. Ethereum 2.0 will distribute network load across 64 distinct shards, with a single Beacon Chain governing them all.
The original Ethereum clients turned off their mining, block propagation and consensus logic, handing that all over to the Beacon Chain. This event was known as The Merge. Once The Merge happened, there were no longer two blockchains; there was just one proof-of-stake Ethereum chain.
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